immigrants and diplomats and cadavers, oh my!

It's been a busy few days! On Saturday and Sunday I was able to do some fun stuf with friends from church, including the Cheesecake Factory and the movie Inception. This week has been a fuller schedule at work so far, with field trips to Dulles Airport and today to the Office of the Medical Examiner of DC (ie. the city morgue).

Yesterday we were observing CBP agents (Customs and Border Protection) stamp people in as they came off of international flights. These included Green Card holders who had been out of the country, US Citizens, people coming on tourist visas, people coming on short-term work visas, student visas, etc. It was interesting to see the things we've been learning put into practice. It was also to show us that those agents have very limited time and information available for decision-making, which means that as consular officers we have to make sure we're checking everything out carefully.

Today we went to the morgue, as something of an introduction to our ACS (American Citizen Services) module. One of our duties in ACS is to identify Americans who die overseas and notify their next of kin. We had a presentation all morning, and then saw a movie about external autopsies before actually seeing one of the bodies there in the morgue. We talked to a grief counselor who walks families through the ID process there at their office. It is a useful exercise to get people familiar with being in that sort of setting before they're actually confronted with it in real life, possibly in a crisis situation.

To top off the busy-ness this week, it's been VBS week at church. I wanted to help, but didn't feel like I could commit to being there every night of the week. It runs from 6-9 each night. So I was assigned to help with registration yesterday and today. I'll try to go back on Friday too. It's been fun, but I'm beat! Luckily this pace will slow down a bit tomorrow.